Local Language

NEW DELHI: Microsoft Corporation on Monday announced the launch of project 'Bhasha', a programme aimed at accelerating local language computing in India. As part of the project, Microsoft will focus in four key areas -- product localisation, government collaboration, academia developer integration and building a local language eco-system -- through community and industry participation. Under the product localisation effort, Microsoft would roll out interfaces for its flagship...

HASSAN: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah today strongly batted for vernacular languages, including Kannada, and expressed concern over "threats" faced by them from the current education system. Inaugurating the 81st Kannada Sahitya Sammelan at Shravanabelogola near here, he said: "Today not only Kannada, but all the vernacular languages are facing threat. There are developments which are causing threat to their very existence. " ...

MUMBAI: Under fire for his government's decision to give licenses only to those taxi drivers who know Marathi, Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan on Thursday backtracked, saying cab drivers should know any local language including Hindi and Gujarati. In a Raj Thackeray-type move, the Congress-NCP government on Wednesday decided to give new taxi licenses to only those persons who are well versed in Marathi and have resided in the state for at least 15 years. ...

It's difficult to say how many in India understand English. But it might be fair to say, as a computing and the web, which is probably 99% English, is largely beyond the vast majority in this country. This is increasingly being seen now as a huge opportunity. The biggest players in computing are creating applications and tools that make it simple to compute in the local language. For Microsoft, this means it can sell more of its Windows 7 or Office Suite.

NEW DELHI: With the buzz around its Digital India programme building up, the government is working to make online content available for Indian citizens in their own language. The e-Bhasha platform, which will help develop and disseminate digital language content to India's largely non-English speaking population , will be rolled out as a mission mode project. A preliminary review of the project took place last week, the detailed project report (DPR) for e-Bhasha...

Chennai-based Uniphore Software Systems, a provider of local language speech-based software solutions, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Indian Angel Network, Stata Venture Partners' founder Ray Stata and YourNest Angel Fund. The six-year-old company will use the funding primarily for international expansion, initially in the Middle East and South East Asia. Incubated at IIT Madras' Rural Technology and Business Incubator,...

NEW DELHI: Locals at the Kangra valley in Himachal Pradesh where pines dominate the picturesque mountains always considered dry pine needles ?the tree leaves ? a nuisance that causes frequent forest fire. That was until some women of Kangra Mahila Sabha (KMS), a self-help group for women in mountain communities, found out on the internet that people in Mexico and Canada make handicraft items with pine needle. Today, at least 500 women of KMS make a living selling pine needle hats,...

NEW DELHI: Local language information technology application market is likely to touch a revenue of $ 64 million by 2005 from the current $ 11 million, according to a study by Frost & Sullivan. The local language applications market, currently estimated at about $ 11 million is likely to grow at a CAGR (Compounded Annual Growth Rate) of over 79 per cent over the next three years (2002-05) and is expected to cross $ 64 million by 2005, Aditya Sapru,...

HASSAN: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah today strongly batted for vernacular languages, including Kannada, and expressed concern over "threats" faced by them from the current education system. Inaugurating the 81st Kannada Sahitya Sammelan at Shravanabelogola near here, he said: "Today not only Kannada, but all the vernacular languages are facing threat. There are developments which are causing threat to their very existence. " ...

NEW DELHI: Microsoft is rolling out interfaces for its flagship products ? 'Windows' and 'Office' (software which runs about 90% of the desktop PCs) ? in 14 Indian languages, including Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam and Bengali. Till now, Microsoft Office is available only in 38 languages worldwide. Launching project Bhasha, Microsoft will focus its efforts along four key areas primarily; product localization, government collaboration, academia/developer integration and...

Harish Rao, a chartered accountant from Chennai, hadn't even heard about the Caribbean island of Curacao, before a job offer from a large trading group run by people of Indian origin took him there in the late 1990s. But today Rao and his wife Poornima have settled in very well in the island and they are running their own financial services and accounting firm. Set up in 2001 as Rao & Co, last year it successfully acquired a Dutch accounting company and...

NEW DELHI: Bharti Airtel will offer free access to social networking site Facebook in nine regional Indian languages to its prepaid customers across the country for a limited period, the company said today. "...it will offer free Facebook access in 9 regional Indian languages to its prepaid customers across India," Bharti Airtel said in a statement. The company said its customers who are Facebook users on the mobile (browser or app) will be able to access...

BANGALORE: One97 Communications, a mobile internet services firm has acquired Bangalore-based Plustxt Mobile Solutions, a multi-lingual texting platform which allows text messaging in any Indian language. One97 will pay around Rs 20 crore on this acquisition, which is a mix of cash and equity. "Pratyush (Plustxt co founder) wanted me to be an angel investor, I kept away for a long time, as it was a conflict of interest," said Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and CEO of One97....

MUMBAI: To educate farmers on best agricultural practices that will help them increase yield, the Maharashtra government is organising a ten-day study tour to Europe for 300 farmers this financial year. "We started this initiative last financial year in which about 540 farmers have participated. This year we are planning to send up to 300 farmers under this programme taking the total to 791. The farmers, who are sent in batch of 45 each,...

COIMBATORE: Leading chip maker Intel is in the process of deveoping a voice-embedded software in local Indian languages for those who are not familiar with the Engligh langugage, a top company official said today. As part of the National Digital Literacy Mission , the government has decided to make one per family e-literate and Intel is one of the ecosystem players, which launched the mission in the country last year, Ramaprasad Srinivasan,...

Harish Rao, a chartered accountant from Chennai, hadn't even heard about the Caribbean island of Curacao, before a job offer from a large trading group run by people of Indian origin took him there in the late 1990s. But today Rao and his wife Poornima have settled in very well in the island and they are running their own financial services and accounting firm. Set up in 2001 as Rao & Co, last year it successfully acquired a Dutch accounting company and...

BEkaar Brand: Essar When we first saw this hoarding, it read "Two-Way Roaming. " So we figured it might make more sense in the local language, but we turned out to be wrong. BEst Brand: Lipton In a hotbed of smart lines and ambience communication, Lipton was one brand that cut through the clutter

NEW DELHI: Microsoft India on Tuesday signed an agreement with Orissa Government for rolling out its local language initiative 'Project Bhasa' in the state. Microsoft will collaborate with the government of Orissa to initially develop basic support for Oriya language which will be followed up with the development of an Oriya Language Interface Pack for Microsoft Windows and Office, Rajive Kaul, MD, Microsoft India, said. The MoU is signed for a period of one year. ...

MUMBAI: On Valentine's Day in 2013, John McClane will be back yet again. And this time McClane (played by Bruce Willis ) may well become Macmohan in northern India, as Fox Studios plans to launch a dubbed version of 'A Good Day to Die Hard' in Punjabi, the fifth in the 'Die Hard' series, which has cumulatively raked in some $1.13 billion worldwide with the first four parts. "The Punjab territory has seen a huge growth in the number of multiplexes, in...